Gymnastics - are they allowed to discriminate?

[Psipsina]

Emailed a local club asking if ds who is nearly 8, could come along.

No, sorry but we only do girls' gymnastics, was the reply.

Is this even allowed? We've found another that's not too far away and seems very pro-boys but I am disgruntled that they could refuse him on the grounds of being a boy.

The only thing it might be is that at my DDs club they do girls and boys classes once they are over about 5. I think the moves and training is different (I have the gymnastic ability of an three legged elephant so am no expert!) So maybe the club only runs the girls classes?

Oh I did wonder if there might be a physiological exception, thank you.

Makes sense I suppose.

It may be to do with coaches qualifications and insurance requirements. Afaik general gym is fine for both boys and girls but if and when they start using specific equipment they need to be qualified in that discipline.

My dds club offers general gym to both but only trains a girls squad - boys who show potential are advised to move to another club.

It seems odd as there are boys doing it at Olympic level too, yet we've been refused before at other clubs.

One of them just said well, he can come but it's mostly ribbon stuff and he might not want to do that. They didn't have any other boys there.

Another club we tried had a lot of boys of all ages but we have moved away from there so trying to find something closer.

My son 9 has been doing gymnastics since he was 6, there are both girls and boys. But the club is large, with several coaches teaching the children in groups, based on ability and preferred apparatus. There are only boys in my sons group. They work on different things once they have gone past a certain level.

If you go onto the British gymnastics website you can search clubs near you and they list which disciplines they offer eg gymnastics for all, men's artistic, women's artistic, acrobatic, rhythmic, trampolining etc so you can see exactly who offers what....

They do different disciplines. Vault is the only thing that is broadly the same. Boys and girls both do floor but they do different things on it. Boys do high bar, p-bar, pommel and rings which girls don't do so if a club has neither the equipment or the coaches to coach boys then you can see why they wouldn't take them. (little kids would be fine but not at 8)

At our gymnastics club there are separate groups for boys and girls from age 5. All boys groups have a male coach although there are male coaches of female gymnasts.

Oooh lovely, thank you for the tip about the website, I'll have a look. Do you think he is too old to start? He has a good shape for it I think and is very keen.

My son does gymnastics and there is a specific trainer for the boys' competition groups. When he is absent and they train with the girls, they don't use any of the specific men's gym apparatus.

Our club does have mixed beginners' classes though.